


Teach You (To Take Care Of Yourself)

by aliitvodeson



Series: Whump fics - marvel edition [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Avengers Tower, Choking, Dark Steve Rogers, Domestic Violence, Drabble, Food Issues, M/M, Victim Tony Stark, Whumptober 2020, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:08:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26754835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliitvodeson/pseuds/aliitvodeson
Summary: Steve just asked for a simple thing. For Tony to make his mom's pasta recipe for dinner. That was all. But Tony can still manage to mess that up.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Whump fics - marvel edition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948816
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	Teach You (To Take Care Of Yourself)

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober 2020  
> Day 1: domestic abuse | forced service | punishment
> 
> Warnings - physical abuse, implied emotional abuse, choking, domestic violence, food control, food as punishment
> 
> Dark Steve Rogers/Victim Tony Stark - in a vague AU setting, this isn't fleshed out at all

“Tony.”  
He’s standing by the door, and he’s still dressed in his uniform. Big black boots, and those thick leather gloves, and Tony can’t even bring himself to properly look at him because to look at the center of the man is to acknowledge that he’s wearing the suit, the fucking suit that Tony helped build and design. Tony’s eyes glance towards the bright star on the chest, and then away again quickly, too quickly.  
Not quick enough.  
“Look at me.” His voice is a snap, loud like thunder but his words so much quicker. If Tony had ever thought that the Captain on the battlefield was bad enough, was tempting enough, that was nothing at all to how he spoke when he was angry at home.  
Tony looks. He lifts his chin and looks Steve in the eyes, and somehow still manages to avoid actually looking at the suit. Thank fucking Thor or whatever.  
“What did I say about dinner tonight?”  
He’s stalking towards Tony, working his glove off on one hand as he does. It’s a complicated thing, connected as it is to the wrist band and all those buckles. Steve makes that fiddly task look all the more dangerous, even as he crosses the long space of the living room and throws the first glove onto the couch. He’s nearly done with the second one by the time he actually gets to Tony.  
Probably would have meant more if he’d timed it perfectly. As it is, Steve is fiddling with the clasp while he looms over Tony.  
Tony, who’s backed up against the kitchen island, who’s hands are tembling, who still hasn’t looked away from Steve despite the way that his heart was picking up in fear and he can hear his blood pounding in his ear. “Steve, I-”  
Steve slaps him with the leather glove. It’s nothing bad, it makes Tony’s cheeks redden and his eyes water, but his head doesn’t slap to the side, it’s practically a love tap coming from the Captain. “I don’t want to hear some excuse. What did I say about dinner tonight?”  
“To have it ready when you got home.”  
“That’s right.” The glove is dropped to the floor, and Steve’s eyes soften. “I don’t ask for much, Tony. And I’m trying to help you. It’s honestly a shame that you can’t cook for yourself at your age.”  
“I tried, I did.” Tony makes a hand waving motion towards the sink. And yeah, it’s gonna sound like an excuse and Steve’s still not gonna like it. But he tried, he really did, and he hopes that Steve might, maybe, possibly understand that. “The recipe you left, and I followed it all, but it had me doing three things at once, and I- hurghdhghgh!”  
That last bit comes out as a jumbled up mess, completely impossible to understand, as Steve wraps his hand around Tony’s throat. He pushes his fingers up, forcing Tony’s chin back and lifting his whole body up from the floor until only his toes can scramble at it. Tony’s hands clutch at Steve’s arm, struggling for a grip, struggling to pull him away. But his fingers are harsh on Tony’s throat, and there are black patches dancing across his vision.  
“Do I have to do everything for myself, you fucking idiot? How the fuck do you manage to fucking burn macroni and cheese?” He loosens his hand, just long enough for Tony to desperately gasp for air, and then his fingers grip down again. “Pasta. You managed to burn pasta. And you wonder why I won’t let you work on your suits anymore. How the fuck could you keep yourself safe in your workshop if you can’t boil pasta?”  
He seems to be waiting for a response, but Tony’s eyes are going dark, and his lungs are burning, and he’s clutching more desperately at Steve’s hand, trying, trying, trying-  
Steve lets him go, and Tony slumps down against the counter, his feet back on the floor and his lungs greedily gulping up fresh air. His throat burns again, and Tony knows that he’ll be bruised by the morning. And Steve will coo and sigh over the bruises and then remind Tony that he can’t go out looking like that. So much for getting to see Pepper at the business meeting tomorrow.  
By the time that Tony has gathered himself up, Steve has a fresh pot of water on the stove, and is examining the cheese that Tony had left shredded in a bowl. “Not bad. You did too much, but still. Look, Clint had some feedback about the arrows. Why don’t you go review the report, while I make dinner?”  
Steve’s face- he’s wearing that same soft, gentle smile that he had back when this all started. Tony hasn’t seen that kind smile in weeks. Maybe it’s okay. He doesn’t trust that it’s okay, it can’t possibly be okay. But he’s also not bold enough to call Steve on how this gentleness can still feel so incredibly wrong. “Yeah, sure. Thanks, Steve.”  
Tony curls up on the couch with the tablet, reading through Clint’s notes. The report from the mission is already heavily censored, he can’t read the details of what Clint was doing with the arrows, but that’s something that he’s used to. Steve talks a lot about how the team would do better with Tony in the field... And then also about how Tony is a liability who doesn’t know how to take care of himself. It hurts to think about, so Tony does what has become so familiar in these past few months.  
He doesn’t think about it.  
Clint’s got notes about the exposlovies on the arrows making the weight uneven, about the delayed reaction time to the trigger, and Tony makes the appropriate notes and calculations in a separate doc. Development can churn out some new models in a day or so, have them ready for Clint to test on the range or if there’s another mission. Perhaps an AI system option, for automatic dentition-  
“Dinner’s ready.”  
Hurriedly setting aside the tablet, Tony rushes through washing his hands while Steve carries two water glasses over to the table. The room has taken on the warm smell of oils and fats that Tony recognizes as some good fucking pasta, and he smiles to himself as he sits down. The mission must really have gone well if Steve was in such a good mood, maybe he’d get through the rest of tonight without-  
“What’s wrong, Tony?” Steve’s smile is wide and with too many teeth, and Tony can only look at Steve’s ice blue dead eyes, and then back at the bowl in front of him, and then back to Steve, back to the bowl. The bowl of charred and blackened pasta. Probably, by all looks, the same pasta that Tony had burned and then failed to scrap out of the pot. “Don’t like your dinner?”  
“Steve, you can’t expect me to-”  
“But I do expect you to.” Steve takes a bit of his own pasta, and the gooey yellow cheese drips off his fork down back to the bowl. He slurps obnoxiously at the stuff, and smirks across the table at Tony. “That’s what you made for yourself. That’s the dinner you choose to make.”  
“But it’s all burned, and it’s not even edible! Honestly, Steve, you can’t make me-” Tony freezes, as Steve slowly sets down his fork.  
“Do you want to test that?” The silence drags out, Tony’s eyes are wide, and Steve raises a single eyebrow. Tony gulps, and looks down at the bowl of burned mess. He picks up his fork. “That’s what I thought.”


End file.
